A KIND-hearted Malvern woman has spoken of her desire to return to Uganda to help neglected young children after recently joining a charity mission.
Emilie Larter made her ambition a reality when she flew out to Africa nine months ago, with the intention of being a volunteer for two months.
However the 23-year-old, who returned to her Leigh Sinton home in April, said she fell in love with the charity, Whisper, so stayed for a further six months. She told The Observer she was hoping to head back out to the country ‘in the near future’.
“I always knew I wanted to volunteer in Africa but I came across Whisper by chance just typing in random searches into Google,” Emilie said.
“Once I was out there I fell in love with the charity and what they do so I extended my stay.
“I was involved in so many different things when I was out there, each day would bring something new and with it, many challenges.”
Whisper is a small non-profit charity operating in Mutai and while she was in the small village, Emilie undertook various childcare schemes, planned campaigns, wrote sponsorship reports and dedicated her time to malnourished and neglected children.
Before heading out to Uganda, Emilie raised more than £2,000 for Whisper by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and has continued giving to the cause, including when she raked in £425 worth of donations instead of birthday presents in October last year.
“I also came up with an idea for a ‘chicken campaign’ where people would buy us chickens at £3.50 a chicken,” Emilie added.
“We built a chicken house and started the online campaign and we have so far managed to get over 70 chickens which are providing all our children with regular eggs in their diet.
“Since this worked so well, we are currently in the middle of planning a bigger and better campaign. The aim would be to eventually help Whisper become self-sustainable.”
The fund-raising has not stopped despite Emilie being more than 6,000 miles away as she hopes to find 99 runners for the London Half Marathon in October.
A table top sale with live music is also arranged for the end of this month.
